Joint Action Coordination through Strategic Reduction of Variability

How do people coordinate actions with others? We tested the hypothesis that pairs of participants strategically reduce the variability of their action performance to achieve synchronicity in the absence of visual feedback about each other’s actions. Consistent with this prediction, participants moved faster and less variably in a condition where they could not see their task partner’s movements compared to a condition in which visual information was available. The accuracy of the resulting coordination was the same in both conditions. These findings are interpreted as evidence for general strategic adaptation in the service of real-time action coordination when only minimal perceptual information is available.